ON MEDICARE
I
t was raining — again. Cold, slushy, May rain, at 6,500 feet. On my third day of work, as a 65-year-old wrangler on a guest ranch near Yellowstone National Park, my Western saddle suddenly shot forward onto the neck of my startled mount. I was pointed downhill on the slickest, steepest, narrowest slope of the morning’s mountain trail. Outwardly, I was cool, calling ahead for a halt to the line of guests. Inwardly, I was freaking — how to fix this heavy saddle quickly, with a gaggle of guests in an awkward, uncomfortable, downhill hold?
As I sit homebound in these viral times, I find myself mind-traveling back to my Montana “summer vacation” last year. I had been, by far, the oldest wrangler in a young person’s job. My colleagues were in their early 20s, and I was older than their grannies. My immediate boss was 34 years my junior. So I needed “street cred,” as it were. I was out of practice. And now I was stuck on a steep, muddy goat track, on an unhappy horse deciding if bucking down the mountain through the guests would solve his saddle problem.
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PineStraw
By Jan Leitschuh
Mid-May in the high country of southern Montana can be a snowy, rainy, muddy mess. I was bringing up the rear on a lope (Western canter) ride, an option for the more experienced guests. It was so slippery we never chanced the faster gait, just walked and trotted to keep guests safe. The cold, gray clouds tossed some wet snow into the rainy mix. I was riding Sebastian, a nice, sturdy bay gelding with a massive, round barrel. Though I had cinched him up as much as I humanely could, the saddle and pad still let loose on the steepest downhill. When I called downslope to the lead wrangler to halt our ride for a moment, he was so far below, it was a miracle he heard. How was I going to fix this? With a wall of Douglas fir rising on the right, I slid off the downhill, left side. When my boots hit the greasy clay, they shot out from under me, and I nearly slipped under my mount. Now my hefty horse really towered above me, with his hindquarters even higher uphill. I had to set the heavy saddle backward. Reaching up to reposition an awkward, 40-pound stock saddle loaded with safety gear, with frozen fingers, on an anxious horse pointed downhill, while balancing on two greasy, mud-slicked rocks in the chilly rain, while guests waited in a precarious position of their The Art & Soul of the Sandhills
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY JAN LEITSCHUH
WRANGLER
Or, what I did on my summer vacation
